Census of the seas kills off thousands of marine species

More than 56,000 species of animals and plants have been scrubbed from the rollcall of marine life after it was realised that they had been counted twice — or more.
Almost a third of all the named species in the seas turn out on renewed inspection to have been “discovered” at least twice by naturalists.
One species, the breadcrumb sponge, Halichondria panicea (left), has been named 56 times since it was first described 242 years ago in 1766.
Other lifeforms identified several times include the spiny dogfish, Squalus acanthias, with 21 Latin names, a type of sea squirt, Cnemidocarpa verrucosa, with 19 names and the basking shark, Cetorhinus maximus, which was named 40 times.
A programme attempting to compile an online register containing a comprehensive list and description of every lifeform in the seas has validated 122,559 known species but discounted a further 55,396.
Even Carl Linnaeus, the scientist who devised the system of Latin names to make the identity of species uniform throughout the world, was guilty of adding to the confusion.
His system meant that while the common whelk is known as a bulot in France and a buccin in Canada, it is universally understood by scientists to be Buccinum undatum.
Linnaeus still managed to get sufficiently confused about the identity of a type of sperm whale to classify it as four different species. The mistake was recognised decades ago but the names still appear in literature and databases.
The huge proportion of repeat-counting - 32 per cent - was put down by scientists involved in the Census of Marine Life to a variety of factors.
They included taxonomic mistakes made either because the original researcher was wrong in the interpretation of the creature’s features or from a failure to notice earlier published descriptions.
Mis-spellings played a role in the number of names attributed to a species and over-enthusiasm on the part of naturalists eager for the glory of being the first to come across an animal or plant was thought to be another factor.
Scientists involved in the project expect to have assessed 230,000 species by October 2010 to create the first Census of Marine Life.
In the long term it is hoped it will hold details of every one of the more than one million species thought to be in the seas and which are being described at a rate of 1,400 species each year.
“Convincing warnings about declining fish and other marine species must rest on a valid census,” said Mark Costello, of the University of Auckland in Australia and a senior Census of Marine Life official.
“This project will improve information vital to researchers investigating fisheries, invasive species, threatened species and marine ecosystem functioning, as well as to educators. It will eliminate the misinterpretation of names, confusion over Latin spellings, redundancies and a host of other problems that sow confusion and slow scientific progress.”
Breadcrumb sponges, which smell like gunpowder, caused such confusion among scientists because they came in a large number of shapes and colours. Among the names given it by supposed discoverers were Alcyonium manusdiaboli in 1794, Spongia compacta (1806), and Trachyopsilla glaberrima (1931).
“That species can have very different forms. It can be green, it can be yellow, it can differ in shape. Scientists who thought they had discovered a new species had just found different forms,” said Ward Appeltans, data manager for the project’s World Register of Marine Species.
Ronald O’Dor, the census’ chief scientist, said the duplication of names illustrated the need for a central database of species information now that the technology is powerful enough.
“I’m not surprised at the duplication. People have been working for centuries in differebnt oceans and different languages,” he said.
“It’s crucial we use the new technology to connect people around the world - that’s what’s happening here. What we are doing here is entering a new age of information technology.”
Philippe Bouchet, a Census scientist, added: “Describing species without a universal register in place is like setting up a library without an index catalogue.”